


i could never define all that you are to me

by qetbackhonkycat



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Confessions, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26770423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qetbackhonkycat/pseuds/qetbackhonkycat
Summary: at button house, they meet again
Relationships: The Captain/William Havers
Comments: 35
Kudos: 220





	i could never define all that you are to me

**Author's Note:**

> back again! 
> 
> series 2 ep 6 - set towards the end of the wedding episode. the captain's emotions make stuff happen
> 
> I've been trying to think of a way they could meet again as ghosts and i thought there's no better way than the emotions the captain thought he had repressed, they're the things that make it happen
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> (as always, pls let me know what u think. especially as to how I've wrote them both)

Maybe it's the pull from The Captain's emotions, unbeknownst to him, or maybe it's the wedding but Havers finds himself being uprooted.

He's dizzy, he's disoriented. Once he comes round, he's surrounded by a room he doesn't recognise clearly. He walks to the nearest window, taking in the lake and the grounds.

Button House.

He's in a room at the far end of the house, the opposite end to where the wedding is currently taking place.

He needs to gather his bearings, he needs to figure out why he's here. And so he makes his way through the house and the rest of the rooms, taking in the way they have changed, and how some have stayed the same. He's making his way through his own memories, the time he spent, the duty he had - being The Captain's Lieutenant. The Captain.

Then starts to hear the faint sound of music. He follows the sound.  
It eventually grows louder and he happens upon the wedding party. He walks tentatively into the outskirts of the room, taking in the crowd, the music, the surroundings.

Then he sees him. He sees _him_. The man he thought he would never see again in his life, or death.

He just stares. He stares and he can't move. He's fixated. Why is he here? Why is The Captain still here?

\---

The Captain is looking to his right, he's talking to Pat. They're talking about how they managed to pull off such an event. Pat's excited to host more. The Captain finds himself agreeing.

Then he feels a pull. He feels like someone is watching him, and he can't help but feel he needs to look up.

Through everyone dancing, and to the other side of the room, he sees him. Havers. Who has an expression mixed between shock, and like he's going to break down in tears at any moment. 

The Captain thinks he's imagining it, he must be, but he can't pull away, he's fixed onto the man in front of him. 

He just starts walking. He keeps going, across the room, until he reaches him. He's out of breath from the adrenaline, as is Havers.

"You're here. How are you here? How are you-"  
He's gesturing and has completely lost any composure he had. He's not as regimented, he's not speaking as he should to a fellow officer.

"I don't know. I don't know how I got here but I felt I needed to be here. Something was pulling me here."

"I thought about you," is all he said. He had never been as open as this. It was certainly the adrenaline.

"Well, then. That seemed to have worked, Sir."

They left the reception room, somewhere quiet.

"Where were you?"

"Where I died. In a hospital, over there. North Africa."

"And you never moved on? Stuck there all this time?"

"Seems so. Guess I had some unfinished business." 

He looked at The Captain, then glanced to the ground, "and you? Been here all this time?"

"Yes. Seems I never left. Never made it to the front. Never was like you, Havers."

"I don't think any of that matters now."

They just look at each other. The Captain clears his throat. 

"That's quite a variety of different people you've been spending your time with." Havers gestures to the room they just came from. The Captain wonders why Havers isn't fazed by any of this - he's so calm.

"Oh? Oh yeah. They're not too bad."

"They look like good company.... I hope you've had company. I hope you haven't been too alone."

"Oh - oh, nonsense. Me? I do alright for myself."

The Captain tries to manage a smile. A pause.

"I don't quite know what to do now,"

_Stay. Please stay._

"I don't quite know how to make it back to where I was."

"Do you want to go back?"

"Well, I suppose it's all I've known. All these years, it's all I've been used to. It's been my life - well, my death." Havers smiles, it gets a laugh from The Captain.

They seem to have moved closer over the course of the conversation. 

They're stood in a room just off from the wedding. It's a small room, cosy, one might say. 

"And you, Sir? How have you been?"

That's too large a question. They're talking as if this is normal. The Captain supposes it is normal now, this is all they're used to. The afterlife, the in-between, whatever people may call it. Meeting an old friend again, how does he answer how he's been? 

"Good. Holding up. Carrying on."

"Stiff upper lip."

"Quite."

There was a long pause, but not uncomfortable.

"I have missed you, Sir."

"I-"

"All these years, it makes one think. About the past, the present, all the things you can't do in the future. All the things I should have done."

The Captain suspects there's a deeper meaning in that, but he's not one to pry.

"Well, I suppose there isn't anything we can do about that now."

"You were always like that, Sir." Havers laughed to himself.

"Excuse me?"

"Didn't let your thoughts run away with you. I suppose I always admired you for that."

"Havers?"

"What I mean to say is, you knew what you wanted, what you were doing. Always so controlled, collected. I was always jealous, in a way."

"Oh, I'm not too sure about that." The Captain fidgets. He takes a walk around the room, pretending to look at the art, anything really.

"It's still a beautiful house." Havers moves the conversation on. 

"I suppose it is. Being here so long, I tend to forget that."

"It is a long time. A long time since-" _since we saw each other last. Our farewell._ He doesn't finish his sentence - he lets it drift off into the surroundings, left unspoken.

The Captain turned around at this, and lifted his head as if to question, as if to gesture for Havers to continue his sentence. 

"Just a long time since we last spoke. When I left. When I left _you._ "

The Captain stands still, he stops pacing, stops pretending to take such interest in a room he could describe with his eyes closed. 

"I-"

"I wanted to leave. I did, I won't lie to you, Sir-"

"Havers, I-"

"Please, let me."

The Captain supposes they aren't at war anymore, their ranks are redundant. They are free to speak openly, speak when they wish to. And so he just listens, much to his discomfort.

"I wanted to be on the front - contribute. What we were doing at Button House, here, it was important, we were doing good work - you were doing good work, Sir. But I wished to be out there, even if it meant leaving. Leaving you."

"Me?" The Captain is as oblivious as he was all those years ago, Havers thinks to himself.

"You don't realise it, do you?"

"Lieutenant?"

"I wouldn't have - I wouldn't have left. If you'd have just told me to stay."

Havers was getting heated now. Not heated, but uncomfortable, shifting. Pacing. He began pacing. He'd lost his composure, let his guard down. The Captain just watched him. There was space between them now, the space of the room, opposite ends.

"I don't -"

"No, of course you don't. You don't understand, because you wouldn't let yourself. I was there, ready to be at your side. To do good work. Together." Havers voice was raised.

"Havers."

The Captain sounded desperate, alone, afraid? Whatever it was that his voice was conveying, it made Havers look up. His face relaxed, softened. 

"I apologise. That was out of character. Out of place - inappropriate." He stands feet together, back straight, chin up. A soldier.

"I don't know what to say to you, Havers. I never did." The Captain looks down, he fidgets with his swagger stick.  
"I couldn't ask you to stay, how could I? That wouldn't have been appropriate and incredibly selfish of me."

"I would have. Stayed."

"You were a good soldier, you were an asset. You were needed at the front. It would have been selfish for me to ask you to give that up to stay and work at Button House for the rest of the war, just because I valued you as a soldier."

"Valued me as a soldier," Havers muttered to himself, "you still don't understand it, do you?" His voice grew louder.

"Lieutenant?"

"I cared for you. I cared for you, such a great deal," He's practically shouting, it was out of rank, but he continued, "I wanted nothing more than to tell you, but whenever I thought we were making progress, you closed up again, and so I stopped trying. I stopped trying to force something that would never happen."

If there was a window, Havers would have turned to look out of it, but there wasn't. It was The Captain and himself in a box room, that felt too small for the both of them.

He's breathing rapidly. He's been uprooted from a place he's known for the longest part of his life and death, to be faced with a man he thought he'd never see again - something he thought he'd made peace with. And now he's here, and he's realised nothing has changed since all those years ago. 

It's quiet, even with the music of the wedding, it's so eerily quiet. The Captain hasn't spoken, neither has Havers. 

"I was your commanding officer," such a fragile, broken voice spoke up from the other side of the room, "I was your commanding officer. I was afraid, a coward. I would have rather gone to fight Jerry than be frank, be open. I never knew you felt the same. Maybe I did deep down, somewhere deep inside, but I needed to bury those emotions, never let them out." He takes a breath, and carries on. "The authorities, if they found out about my feelings, my ways, I'd have lost my position, my role in the war, never mind the things you hear about." _Still speaking in present tense._ "I'd have lost you."

Havers had been looking at him this whole time. The Captain had been staring at the floor, looking past Havers, anything to avoid eye contact. But as he said his last sentence, he looked up, meeting Havers, and he felt something inside him shift. He was back to being a captain again, saying farewell to his second in command. 

Havers took a few steps forward. The Captain stood still. 

Havers considers for a long time. It's approximately thirty seconds, but to them, it seems like a long time - everything seems like a long time. He could question The Captain, quiz him about why he didn't ask him to stay, why he didn't just tell him. They could have managed it, together. They would have been together. But, he knows deep down why. He knows The Captain, he knows he was afraid, God, he was too. So, he settles for what he always does - kindness.

"We're not at war anymore, Captain. I think we're a bit long in the tooth to be thinking about what could have happened in the past."

"But-"

"No, 'buts'. Like I say, we're too old for this now, enough time has passed for us."

Havers makes his way over to The Captain. He looks so exhausted, so tired of the years he's had to spend alone. Despite the company of the other ghosts, he really has always been alone.

Havers reaches The Captain,  
"Tell me to stop. You have to tell me to stop, if you wish."

Silence. A nod. No order to stop.

Havers brushes his thumb over The Captain's cheek, The Captain sucks in a breath. 

"Oh, how I've missed you," he whispers. Havers looks into his eyes, then to his lips. He questions with his eyes, needing to know it's okay, and The Captain nods once more. 

Then he's kissing him. It's soft, tentative. He still has his hand on his cheek. The Captain closes his eyes, and lets himself be taken away by it. 

He goes back to the days they spent with each other walking around the grounds, the briefings where they catch each other's eye and smile, the late night talks in his office. 

Every bit of tension he has been holding on to for all these years seem to dissipate finally, and he returns to the moment.

Then Havers breaks the kiss. 

They look at each other for what seems like hours. It's only a few seconds. The music has been completely drowned out and for once, The Captain is thankful the other ghosts haven't noticed his missing presence.

Havers takes both The Captain's hands in his,

"If you'll have me, I'd like to stay. With you."

The Captain breathes for the first time since Havers left. 

"I want you to stay."

"Then that's all I need to know."


End file.
